by cyberjesus 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Some people accuse Atheists of not being open minded for not believing in the existence of a creator. But is not believing a sign of close mindedness? Can you believe in God and be open minded?
Here is an excellent video enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI&playnext=1&videos=0njTS0JieV0&feature=mfu_in_order
Marked for later reference. Thanks.
BTW - I loved the 'Secret of Chaos' series. [that WAS you wasn't it?]
There's an example of open minded scientific thought in that vid.
Jeff
yeah those vids are fantastic, funny is that not many people are even interested in watching them
V665
Nice vid. Shame about the cheesy Marvel comics graphics though! I'm an atheist, (but I still like to listen to Coast To Coast). It annoys people and they get tetchy when I ask for empirical evidence for something being a true fact. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to see evidence before you agree with something. Why let your opinion be swayed so cheaply?
I'm not an atheist, I have my own take on things, but I am open to all strains of thought and will consider something that is presented to me. I may not totally agree with the others' viewpoint, I may just take one or two gems that I find fit my way and am happy to do that.
Why would an omnipotent ,omniprescent,omniscient, God,creator of the universe leave it up to a miniscule people on earth to( ,and flawed at that,)promote an all loving God who is interested in all mankind,when the facts show otherwise.India,Pakistan,china,bangladesh,the arab countries just to name a few,these are billions of people who never get a "witness",wherein Jesus has been around for 2 thousand years,and he is only known in certain western lands.It doesn`t sound like he`s done a great job does it And if God the father of jesus truly loves the world of mankind then why the crap doesnt he just go ahead and do it ,instead of shifting the blame on imperfect human beings.Jesus Christ has had 2000 yrs to save humankind,He hasn`t done so
Maybe Jehovah doesn`t exist
Maybe Jesus Christ doesnt exist
Depends what your definition of open-minded is?
Having a strong faith in a particular belief is the sign of someone with conviction in their choices.
For me being wishy-washy and spending your life fence-sitting is just a lack of conviction that is not open-minded.
Open-minded is allowing for new experiences and making decisions on them. Just accepting all directions as options without any kind of opinion is not really experiencing them.
I look deeply at all options available to me and made an informed choice based on knowledge and experience to become a Jehovah's witness. I have commited to that choice now but I can speak knowledgeably about the ones I rejected.
If someone chooses to be an Atheist the same way I respect that.
I am sure that they would agree with me that we make choices and accept the consequences of those choices which is the essence of freewill. We can't then conplain if we are wrong.
So making choices that lead to conviction of opinion is not a sign of lacking openmindness IMO.
I look deeply at all options available to me and made an informed choice based on knowledge and experience to become a Jehovah's witness. I have commited to that choice now but I can speak knowledgeably about the ones I rejected.
When I read this, I had a flash back. One of, (maybe the last time) I talked to my dad, I asked, "but what if you are wrong?"
He got very upset and said, "I can not be wrong. If I was wrong than, that would mean I wasted the last 40+ years if life. I can not be wrong. I am not wrong!"
lisa
A few months ago I was still a believer in God. I was open minded though, not closing the door to consideration of other possible explanations. So, I accept that believers can be, though very often are not, open minded about other possibilities and explanations for the universe, life, etc.
Under the surface though, I was unable to completely prevent my mind from honestly admitting that I was denying effective argumentations for rejection of 'faith' and 'belief' in favor of reasonable understanding of this world around us. In time, some of the same sort of arguments, reasoning, that I now accept, were churning in my mind, wouldn't let me get settled into a fog again that was 'mystical, spiritual, or faith-based'.
Some atheists here on JWN and elsewhere were making logical, coherent, sensible statements. I was denying those statements, defending God, Jesus, the Bible, invisible people in hidden places pulling strings that never seemed to really solve anything. My open mindedness was the biggest blessing in my life. I morphed. In a relatively short time, I went from one who was shallow, accepting of fantastic stories about how a snake and a naked lady were responsible for all the worlds evil, to a skeptic. I found out in short order that reality, not smoke and mirrors of faith, is far more satisfying, far more palatable to my evolving mind.
There are those who claim that they remain Christian and open minded. This might be true - but open minded and religion don't harmonize well. It will set up cognitive dissonance for many. This is IMO the reason that so many people attempting to 'heal' from spiritual abuse become atheists in time. They look more closely at the other 'choices' in religion, and find that there are really no choices but two: 1] swallow - hook line and sinker - stories of complete nonsense about how we came to be, how cities were felled with people marching around them, how 'god' could murder on one hand and be the 'god of love' on the other, etc. 2] pull back the curtain [yes the same one we pulled back to reveal Jw's a farce] and see that the OZ is just a fantasy - a hologram - a pretense adopted and adapted from our tribal, superstitious ancestors.
Where it goes from there is varied. But it is the beginning of wisdom to be open minded.
Jeff
